Copula - です - to be (copula)

です is the Japanese version of 'to be' or 'is'. With this you can say something is something. For example: 車は黄色です (the carisyellow).

です (pronounced as "des") is the most well-known of the Japanese copula. It may be used after nouns, i-adjectives and verbs in their plain form. In many cases, です serves no grammatical purpose, but is used only to make the statement more polite.

です is a contracted form of the polite Japanese copula でございます, and has its own peculiar forms of inflection, noted below.

Formation

Form

Polite

Informal

Present

です

だ

Present negative

ではありません or じゃありません

じゃない

Past

でした

だった

Past negative

ではありませんでした or じゃありませんでした

じゃなかった

Probable

でしょう

だろう (rude)

Probable negative

ではないでしょう

じゃないだろう (rude)

* The は in the negative forms are pronounced as "wa" and can be left out.

Additional notes

In spoken Japanese, です is the moderately polite form of the copula. In written Japanese, です is rather informal, owing to the fact that statements using です appear similar to spoken Japanese.

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